Digital Commons Network^™

Covid-19 Control: Disrupting Doctor-Patient Relationships, Roy G. Spece Jr.

Nebraska Law Review

The full-armamentarium of public health countermeasures came into play when COVID-19 emerged; a few examples are quarantine, closures, and social distancing. These countermeasures are intended to protect population health but trench on many important rights protected by ethical precepts and tort, constitutional, or other law. The measures studied here, orders to delay “elective” medical procedures to preserve resources, have been virtually ignored. Yet, they are uniquely broad, risky, and disruptive of doctor-patient relationships. Delay also can be shoddily promulgated or implemented, thus creating tort liability. Although medicine (speaking for the few) and public health (speaking for the many) traditionally have …

Where’S The Meat? Lochner And The President’S Executive Order, Catherine M.A. Mccauliff

Nebraska Law Review

Rarely do we get the opportunity, distasteful as it may be in this situation, to relive an older Supreme Court case in real time. Today’s situation involving the meatpackers, some of whose employers are taking no precautions to protect against the pandemic virus called COVID-19, is not (yet) in the courts but comes to us in the form of a presidential executive order. These circumstances recall a compelling case from the early twentieth century in which workers similarly faced conditions dangerous to their health and well-being.

In Lochner v. New York, a majority of the Supreme Court, in an …

Listen!: Amplifying The Experiences Of Black Law School Graduates In 2020, Sarah J. Schendel

Nebraska Law Review

The class of 2020 graduated law school in the midst of a pandemic that, as of May 2020, had infected 1,716,078 and killed 101,567 in the United States alone.Of those impacted, Black Americans experienced one of the highest death rates, with a mortality rate twice that of whites.At the same time, “police killings continue[d] unabated, at 2.5 times the rate for Black men as for white men.”Nationwide protests for racial justice and against police brutality gained urgency and momentum after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were murdered by police,even as demonstrators themselves were subjected to violence from law enforcement.Meanwhile, the …

Covid-19, Constitutions, And A Connected World: Assessing The Constitutionality Of Remote Voting In Legislatures, Joseph R. Quinn

Nebraska Law Review

I. Introduction

II. Background ... A. A Brief History of the COVID-19 Outbreak and Its Effects ... B. The Legislative Response to the Outbreak

III. Federal Level: There Are No Constitutional Barriers to Remote Voting in Congress ... A. Members of Congress Lobby for Remote Voting in Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak ... B. Congress’s Rulemaking Power in the Context of Remote Voting ... C. The Political Question Doctrine Would Likely Lead the Court To Reject a Challenge to the Rulemaking Power ... D. The Quorum Requirement as a Potential Express Limitation to Congress’s Rulemaking Power in the Remote Voting …

Anth 110: Introduction To Anthropology: A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Memo, Taylor A. Livingston

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio examines the extent to which the learning outcomes for Introduction to Anthropology (ANTH 110) were met through course assessments. The primary goal of this course is for students to engage with anthropological content, by introducing students to an anthropological perspective, which requires looking at issues from multiple contexts (holism), and having students add this to their “tool kit” to help them make sense of what they believe, why they believe it, and how to make sense of the world around them and their place in it. The alignment of outcomes and assessment was analyzed through an examination of …

Nutr100 Healthy Living – A Peer Review Of Teaching Benchmark Portfolio, Shinya Takahashi

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

NUTR100 Healthy Living is a gateway course for Nutrition and Health Sciences major students as well as students from other majors at UNL. The course is a large hybrid-online 100-level class. The course is an introductory course designed to help the students improve his/her level of well-being by understanding various risk factors and personal behaviors that affect health. The objectives of this portfolio were 1) Improve students’ preparation for exams by providing exam review sessions, 2) Improve students’ “healthy living practices” throughout the semester and beyond, and 3) Creating a sense of belongingness/community by sharing your experiences, providing constructive feedback, …

Changes In Sensorimotor Cortical Activation In Children Using Prostheses And Prosthetic Simulators, Christopher Copeland, Mukul Mukherjee, Yingying Wang, Kaitlin Fraser, Jorge M. Zuniga

Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders: Faculty Publications

This study aimed to examine the neural responses of children using prostheses and prosthetic simulators to better elucidate the emulation abilities of the simulators. We utilized functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to evaluate the neural response in five children with a congenital upper limb reduction (ULR) using a body-powered prosthesis to complete a 60 s gross motor dexterity task. The ULR group was matched with five typically developing children (TD) using their non-preferred hand and a prosthetic simulator on the same hand. The ULR group had lower activation within the primary motor cortex (M1) and supplementary motor area (SMA) compared to …

Psychological Self Image Impact Among Teens, Kendra Karnish

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

The psyche is impacted by social norms projected by society. This is evident when “Approximately 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve their ideal body shape. Unfortunately, only 5% of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media.” (Palmer, 2013, para. 4). Asserted norm about body image effected teens negatively. There are beauty norms that target teens throughout the world, which can cause mental health issues. This is due to pressure they feel to look or act a certain way even if these standards are physically unattainable. Research …

Adoption: The Good And The Bad, Fatima Madera Hernandez

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Every year thousands of kids relocate to new homes and to new parents. This process is very life altering and can have deep effects on children. When kids are moved around from one place to another, they struggle to adjust to their surroundings. Adoption can deeply affect people in both positive and negative ways.

Insufficient Sleep And Adolescents, Angel Cavazos

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Sleep insufficiency is the decrease in either sleep quality, or quantity, to where performance is decreased. Sleep is important for adolescents as it plays an important role in mood and development of depressive symptoms. A myriad of troubling side effects stem from sleep loss including weight gain, depression, suicidal ideation, drowsy driving, and lower performance.

Isolation And The Human Mind, Eli Flodman

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

The Lord of The Flies is a novel tailored to the fundamental innocence found in man as well as the effects of mob mentality and extreme isolation. This research focuses on the effects of isolation within a small group while comparing COVID families to the Lord of The Flies.

Child Abuse, Mathew Ramirez Lopez

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

In the United States, child abuse is defined as the physical maltreatment or sexual molestation of a child. Four majortypes of child abuse exist: neglect, physical, sexual, and psychological.The atrocityofchild abuse is that the abuse leaves the children with everlasting emotionalscars, and often,withphysical,cognitive, andsocial health issues. The irreversible affects such as head trauma, lower performance inschool, and poor social skills are equally as important. As the years continue, more and more children are being,and will be, abused. Overall, the importance is stopping this crime that does not need to happen.

The Foster Care System: Domestic Abuse, Guadalupe Hernandez Rodriguez

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

In the United States, children not only experience domestic abuse at home but can also be an issue while placed in the foster care system. In the foster care system, the abuse suffered by these individuals is increased due to home instability. Abuse can take place in many forms (physical, emotional, economical, and sexual) and can occur in many places. It can become a life-threatening crime or a crime that affects an individual’s day-to-day life. The youth and young adults who pass through this system are left with physical injuries and adverse childhood experiences (abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction). The …

Acculturation, Nyanhial Wiyual Pal

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

The phenomenon of acculturation occurs when groups of people from different cultures come into constant contact with shifts in the original culture, the host country's culture, or the cultures of both groups. It can affect immigrants’ health and well-being as a result of coping with stressful experiences such as prejudice, racism, and poverty, as well as changes in or loss of identity, a lack of social support, exposure to diverse views, cultural values and norms, and particular patterns of health behaviors (drinking, smoking, taking illicit drugs).

Addiction-Family Impacts, Emily Orona

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Drug and alcohol addiction is a disease that negatively affects a person's brain and behavior which leads to an inability to control the use of legal or illegal drugs. Addiction is sometimes used interchangeably with abuse, although they differ tremendously. Those who abuse drugs and alcohol still have control over their lives, while those with an addiction have a disease that affects many aspects of their life. Drug and alcohol addiction does not only impact the individual, but also their family. It is especially more challenging when a parent has addiction. Addiction affects not only the parent, but the child …

Homelessness: Doomed From The Cycle, Belle Tran

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

The homeless are most often those caught up in the cycle of the judicial system, which needs to be challenged in order to be fixed. These persons are often plagued with costly health issues.

Police Brutality, Kelly Solis

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Police brutality is the excessive or unnecessary force used by law enforcement officials towards civilians. It’s a public health issue that impacts both physical and mental health. Although the misconduct of law enforcement officials is highly known to be the cause of racial discrimination, there are actually other elements contributing to such a broad issue. The importance of this issue led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Alzheimer's Effects On A Family, Brianna Sanchez

Nebraska College Preparatory Academy: Senior Capstone Projects

Alzheimer’s is a word many families despise; a disease that weakens hearts and takes away the ones families love most. The disease is said to be deadly--but not sudden--with no cure. As awful as it sounds, the death is devastating but is not the worst part of this disease: the worst part is the stages leading up to the full-blown disease that families have to watch that hurts most and could make or break a family.

What makes Alzheimer’s hard to live with is how family members have to slowly watch their loved ones fade away, mentally and physically. In …

Hazardous Weather Communication En Español: Challenges, Current Resources, And Future Practices, Joseph E. Trujillo-Falcón

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: Technical Reports and Related Materials

According to recent US Census data, the Hispanic or Latino population represents nearly 1 in 5 Americans today, where 71.1% of these individuals speak Spanish at home. Despite increased efforts among the weather enterprise, establishing effective risk communication strategies for Spanish-speaking populations has been an uphill battle. No frameworks exist for translating weather information into the Spanish language, nor are there collective solutions that address this problem within the weather world. The objective of this article is threefold. First, the current translation issue in Spanish is highlighted. Through research conducted at the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center, situations are revealed where …

Female And Male-Controlled Livestock Holdings Impact Pastoralist Food Security And Women’S Dietary Diversity, Henriette Gitungwa, Christopher Gustafson, E.Y. Jimenez, E. Wesley F. Peterson, M. Mwanzalila, Asha Makweta, E. Komba, R.R. Kazwala, J.A.K. Mazet, Elizabeth Vanwormer

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Background: Food insecurity is a global problem that requires a One Health approach. As many households in low- and middle-income nations rely on crops and livestock that they produce to meet their household’s needs, food security and nutrition are closely linked to the health of animals and the environment. Resources controlled by women are more often allocated to uses that benefit the entire household, such as food, health, and educating children, than men’s resources. However, studies of gender control of resources among pastoralist societies are scant. We examined the effect of female and male control of livestock resources on food …

Pesticide Occurrence And Persistence Entering Recreational Lakes In Watersheds Of Varying Land Uses, Jessica Satiroff, Tiffany Messer, Aaron R. Mittelstet, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Currently little is known of newer pesticide classes and their occurrence and persistence in recreational lakes. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to (1) assess average pesticide concentrations and loadings entering recreational lakes in three mixed land use watersheds throughout the growing season, (2) evaluate pesticide persistence longitudinally within the lakes, and (3) perform an ecotoxicity assessment. Six sampling campaigns were conducted at three lakes from April through October 2018 to measure the occurrence and persistence during pre, middle, and post growing season. Polar organic chemical integrative samplers (POCIS) were placed in streams near lake inlets and monthly samples …

Occurrence Of Arsenite In Surface And Groundwater Associated With A Perennial Stream Located In Western Nebraska, Usa, Arindam Malakar, Rajesh Singh, Jeffrey Westrop, Karrie A. Weber, Christopher N. Elofson, Manish Kumar, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Dissolved arsenic typically results from chemical weathering of arsenic rich sediments and is most often found in oxidized forms in surface water. The mobility of arsenic is controlled by its valence state and also by its association with iron oxides minerals, the forms of which are both influenced by abiotic and biotic processes in aqueous environment. In this study, speciation methods were used to measure and confirm the presence of reduced arsenic species in the surface water of Frenchman creek, a gaining stream that crosses the Colorado- Nebraska border. Selective extraction analysis of aquifer and stream bed sediments shows that …

Droughtscape, Winter 2021, National Drought Mitigation Center

DroughtScape: Quarterly Newsletter of the National Drought Mitigation Center (2007–2023)

DroughtScape, Winter 2021

Life In Metropolitan Nebraskan Communities: 2021 Nebraska Metro Poll Results, Rebecca J. Vogt, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyer, Steven A. Schulz

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

By many different measures, metropolitan Nebraskans are positive about their community. Most metropolitan Nebraskans rate their community favorably on its social dimensions. Overall, respondents rate their communities as friendly, trusting and supportive. Most metropolitan Nebraskans say it would be difficult to leave their community.

Most metropolitan Nebraskans have a positive attachment to their community. Most metropolitan Nebraskans agree that they can get what they need in their community, the community helps them fulfill their needs, they feel like a member of their community, they belong in their community, they have a good bond with others in their community and feel …

Diversification Of Angiosperms During The Cretaceous Period, Sakia Fields

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The topic of the Angiosperms relatively sudden appearance and diversification is a topic that has puzzled plenty of biologists and is even referred to as an “abominable mystery” by Charles Darwin. Up to date, many hypotheses have been proposed using various forms of data to form them. The available knowledge used to evaluate this topic has changed over the years, which has created some theme shifts. Some of the best supported of these hypotheses are more recent, but this does not make older articles unworthy of being evaluated, as they still often have relevant information. In the past, their appearance …

How Is Remote Sensing Being Used To Prevent Wildfires Today?, Luke Lauby

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Wildfires frequencies and severities are on the rise. To properly combat and contain them, artificial intelligence should be utilized. An in-depth literature review was conducted in order to evaluate the current state of artificial intelligence specifically relating to wildfire prevention and suppression efforts. The findings in this research sheds further light on the helpful implications that these technologies (both satellites and UAVs) do, and can have on wildfire suppression. If further adopted in wildfire suppression efforts, artificial intelligence can play a more effective role. Through this, fires can become better prevented, more controllable, and better understood using modern technology.

Distribution Of Green Spaces In Omaha, Nebraska, Sofia Gavia

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The distribution of parks often depends on the races, ethnicity, and socioeconomic class of a community’s households. Parks and green spaces provides community residents recreational opportunities, economic benefits, and improves community public health. The unequal distribution of parks and green spaces in a city is a social issue found across the country. Limited research has been done on the relationship between green spaces and park access and social justice in Omaha, Nebraska. This study discusses whether there is a difference in how parks are distributed in Omaha, NE in terms of social justice and equitable distribution. Research is done using …

The Effect Of Urban Forests On Air Quality And Human Health, Chance Wilken

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Following the industrial revolution, the impacts of climate change have been increasingly impactful on both rural and urban populations around the world. As population density and urbanization increase throughout the globe, the influences of climate change will continue to play a dangerous role in its influence on people's lives. Due to negative health impacts on humans and the economic costs in cities, climate change is one of the most important issues to understand in the 21st century. Air quality and human health are two components of climate change that are impacted most significantly. The bulk of this work is to …

The Effect Of Drought On The Bird Species Spiza Americana, Emily Nelson

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Climate change is becoming an integral part of our environment. Recognizing its effects on ecosystems and species’ health is important for the future of the natural world. There is an influx of changes that are happening to species, specifically birds due to climate change, and these changes are largely negative. A variation that is happening from the changing climate is an increase in drought conditions, which may have effect on the avifauna community. Drought causes a significant difficulty for species survival in all parts of the globe that includes hardships finding food and unsuccessful nesting. The implications of this problem …

Impact Of Ethnic Markets On Food Accessibility In Lincoln, Ne, Connor Mcfayden

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

This study used availability surveys and demographic mapping to analyze the impact of ethnic grocery stores on food accessibility in Lincoln, Nebraska. Access to fresh, healthy foods has been shown to be an important factor in public health, one in which low-income and minority populations are more likely to experience barriers such as long distances to the nearest grocery store. A growing body of research has described ethnic markets as important sources of fresh, healthy food for vulnerable populations, but on the whole the contributions of ethnic markets are overlooked in policy and research. In addition, ethnic markets may face …